Parents’ voices

Prologue

Following closure of the school on 28th January 2020, a small group came together with concerns about the impact of the sudden closure on pupils, parents and teachers, which we were already hearing about. In conversations through February, it became apparent that the devastating impact was even worse than could be imagined: it was made all the more acute because parents and pupils were not allowed to be in contact with teachers, and teachers were forbidden contact with parents. Teachers, in the middle of main lesson blocks, projects, play rehearsals and more with the children couldn’t bring this to completion. Nor could they assist their pupils even through ‘distant’ contact. Management even instructed teachers to ‘look away’ if they met pupils or parents in town.

It is doubtful that such an inhuman way of dealing with other human beings, with total disregard for the personal traumas which were then experienced by many and which we were hearing further accounts of, would be hard to find in the annals of Ofsted school inspections and the ramifications coming from them. Could any of this be ‘explained to the children in a way that made sense?

This was out of the school management’s and trustees’ fear of Ofsted and the DfE and what their reactions would be if contact with parents and children was maintained: they were in no unclear words instructed by the DfE to immediately close the school or face legal action. Contact with pupils by teachers, they no doubt believed, could be claimed by Ofsted/ DfE as continuing schooling.

The Questionnaire for parents

A very simple questionnaire was sent to a number of Wynstones parents in the beginning of March 2020, inviting their comments on their and their children’s experiences of the recent school closure. It was compiled in the spirit of genuine and open inquiry, as we wished to discover what the experience of the school’s closing had been like for families. We were careful to ask for parents’ positive as well as negative experiences of the closure, so in this sense the wording of the questionnaire was impeccably neutral.